Diabolo is much more than a hobby, it isn’t just a fun pastime, it also helps you build a better mind and body.
Physical Benefits
Fun Aerobic Exercise
Diabolo juggling is actually a form of exercise that can burn 280 calories per hour (similar to walking). It is a fun, full body workout.
If you think juggling only gets your arms moving, think again ! Yes you will use your arms to juggle but learning new tricks involves dropping the diabolo a lot. That’s when your legs get to work. The diabolo will roll quite a bit especially if you’re practicing outside, so you will have to walk to your diabolo and pick it up (squats!!!).
And because it’s fun, you don’t feel like you’re exercising and you can keep going for a long time easily and do it again the following day. Also as a portable workout, once you’re hooked, you probably will never miss a day of diabolo.
Better Joints Flexibility
It maintains and increases the range of motion in your arms and shoulders. It’s a gentle exercise that is not stressful on the joints which makes it a perfect physical activity for everybody : the young, the old, the healthy or the injured.
I think diabolo can help you with the rehabilitation of shoulders (no scientific proof, just my story). My right shoulder got injured badly during a judo competition (if you are caught in an arm bar, tap out ! Trust me, it’s not worth it) and I couldn’t lift my arm above my shoulder.
After the normal physio rehabilitation process, I could lift my arm a little higher but not much and I was told that it would most likely be like that for the rest of my life. The only form of exercise I did since then was diabolo and now I can lift my arm a lot more. I can’t lift it as high as the left arm but I can at least brush my hair without pain.
Cat-Like Reflexes
Diabolo might not help with clumsiness but it will improve your coordination. Clumsiness is for most people (me included) a problem of attention, not reflexes but most of the time.
I am still living in my head most of the time, totally unaware of my surroundings, so I still bump into things but i am now way better at catching said things before they hit the floor.
Diabolo and juggling in general makes you better with hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision, and visual reaction time.
It is an ideal addition to any athlete’s training regimen, as athletes tend to focus on developping strength and endurance. But if you lack coordination, you are not using these qualities optimally. Diabolo is a fun, low impact activity that will enhance your reflexes.
Mental Benefits
Resilience to failure
Diabolo will teach you perseverance. When you’re learning, you will drop the diabolos or the sticks a lot more than you will catch them. There is no getting around that.
Juggling is one of the most unforgiving art, when you make a mistake you can’t hide it or pretend it didn’t happen, you just drop. It’s very frustrating because you fail so much and it’s plain to see. But to improve, every time you fail, you have to pick youself (or rather your diabolos) back up. Some tricks need a lot more repetitions than others to master and so more drops and failures before you can catch the diabolo(s).
For example, learning to shuffle 3 diabolos in the string take on average between 1 and 3 years of practice. Some people can learn a lot faster, but even then, the fastest I’ve heard about for learning 3D low was 3 months and it was someone who practiced exclusively this trick, at least 1 hour a day, every day.
Exciting And Relaxing
You can make your diabolo practice stimulating or calming depending on the type of juggling session (learning new tricks or polishing learned tricks).
Feeling bored ? Challenge yourself, learn a new trick. For this type of training session, you will need to be laser focused, breaking down the trick into parts, analyzing what you’re doing wrong and and constantly adapting to master a new skill.
Feeling overwhelmed ? Chill out, just do the tricks you’ve already mastered. When practicing skills you’ve already mastered you relax into a more fluid, intuitive motion and you can reach a flow state.
Nakahara et al (2007) investigated the effects of juggling on women with anxiety. Patients who were undergoing 6 months of conventional anxiety treatment were split into two groups : the « 10-minutes-a-day jugglers » and the « non jugglers ». At the end of the 6 months, the jugglers scored significantly lower on standard tests of anxiety and depression.
Workout For The Brain
Your brain has the ability to change and adapt as a result of experience, it’s called neuroplasticity. Juggling (diabolo included) will make your brain change for the better.
Juggling has been proven to:
- increase the amount of gray matter in the brain which means better processing and computation
- increase white matter which connects different areas of the brain
- improve spatial abilities, that is better visualization and manipulation of 3D shapes in your mind
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